Description
Webex by Cisco is an American company that develops and sells web conferencing and videoconferencing applications. It was founded as WebEx in 1995 and taken over by Cisco Systems in 2007. Its headquarters are in Milpitas, California.
Its software products include Webex Meetings, Webex Teams, Training Center, Event Center, Support Center, Sales Center, MeetMeNow, PCNow, Webex AIM Pro Business Edition, Webex WebOffice, and WebEx Connect. All Webex products are part of the Cisco Systems collaboration portfolio.
History
WebEx was founded in 1995 by Subrah Iyar and Min Zhu. It had its initial public offering in July 2000. WebEx was listed on the NASDAQ National Market, and then the NASDAQ Global Select Market, when that was introduced in 2006.
Services
At the time of the acquisition, all Webex applications were built on the MediaTone platform and supported by the Webex MediaTone Network (originally called the Webex interactive network), a global network intended for use with on-demand programs. The network was designed by Shaun Bryant, Webex's Chief Network Architect, and Zaid Ali Sr, Network Architect, to be one of the first SaaS platforms on the Internet.
In July 2006, AOL and Webex launched a business version of AOL's instant messaging software, AIM Pro, with additional features to help workers collaborate using conferencing tools offered by Webex.
On September 26, 2006, the company announced plans to offer a web collaboration "mashup" platform called "Webex Connect".
On November 17, 2014, Cisco announced an evolution of Webex called Project Squared. On March 17, 2015 this effort was re-branded as Cisco Spark.
On April 18, 2018, Cisco announced that Cisco Spark would be combined into the Cisco Webex platform. On this same date, Cisco rebranded all of the rest of their Spark products to Webex, including the Spark Room Kit—now Webex Room Kit—and Spark Board—now Webex Board.
On May 15, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cisco CFO Kelly Kramer reported in the month of April 2020, they had 500 million meeting attendees, and that equated to 25 billion meeting minutes, using its video-conferencing application WebEx.
In September 2020, Cisco launched a new platform Webex Classrooms for virtual homeroom encounters.
